In this paper, I examine the role of archives as spaces for democratizing memorial processes in societies affected by conflict. In Chantal Mouffe's vision for an agonistic democracy, dissent is institutionalized (2000). Thus, democracy becomes an ongoing conversation about how to construct the best societal realities and what ought to constitute these realities. I argue that oral history archives serve this same purpose for memory construction. In McKemmish and Gilliland's vision of the archival space, participatory archives are built on a de-centralized and non-hierarchical understanding of knowledge-building. In a participatory archive, knowledge contributed from different sources (i.e. grassroots/civil society organizations, the State, the Academy) is considered as equally valid and equally subject to contestation (2014). This combats an idea of oral history as complement to official history, rather than an equally valid account of events. In some participatory archival spaces, eyewitnesses who gave testimonial interviews for the archival spaces maintain an active role in the project's maintenance and future. There is also often space created for average citizens not involved in the archival space to meaningfully evaluate the project and influence its practice. This creates a space for memory and history as ongoing conversation.
My own experience with these types of archival spaces comes from my work with the Belfast-based Prisons Memory Archive (PMA) and my doctoral fieldwork in Germany. For my doctoral fieldwork, I conducted dialogue-style interviews with former political prisoners that experienced incarceration in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the former East German state. This work has taught me the nuance, complexity, and plurality that is possible in the preservation of an oral history space. In this imaginal politics of memorialization, the hoped-for future is constructed through ongoing discussion over the meaning of a society's past. This is an 'anarchist' approach to memorialization in the vein of David Graeber's understanding of anarchy as direct democracy (2004). Understanding the role these archival spaces in a society's understanding of its past, present, and future provides insight into how we can democratize society more broadly by practicing a democracy-from-below.
